An idiosyncratic choice, based on my enjoyment of the John Biggins novels. A little disappointing, though; like most Osprey books, the target audience is primarily military modelers and only secondarily people interested in history. Thus there are lots of rare pictures of aircraft and pilots, a central color section with pretty aircraft paintings, and accounts of individual aircraft actions, but not too much on the entire WWI air campaign on the Serbian, Russian and Italian fronts.


It’s clear that Biggins did excellent research documenting Otto Prohaska’s career. The change from submarine to aviation service in the novels seemed to be an implausible plot device, but in fact it doesn’t seem that unusual for KuK soldiers to change branch of services; at least one KuK ace alternated between being a pilot and an infantry officer on the Isonzo front. The practice of using enlisted men to fly aircraft while officers sat in the rear seat and acted as observers was also as discussed by Biggins; in one case an NCO pilot was refused permission to scramble and attack incoming Italian aircraft because there was no officer available to ride in the back seat. One thing not mentioned by Biggins is the KuK’s unconventional way of awarding air victories; every aircrew member involved in the action was awarded one victory for each enemy aircraft shot down – i.e., if two KuK two-seaters shot down a single Russian aircraft, there would be four victories awarded – one for each pilot and one for each observer. This means the total of all KuK victories awarded is greater than the number of enemy aircraft actually destroyed.


Austro-Hungarian aircraft were pretty miserable – there were only 35 available when the war started – until they began getting license-built Albatross’; the exception being the Lohner flying-boat fighters, which looked ungainly but apparently performed well enough that they were copied by the Italians and the #15 KuK ace (and highest scoring naval ace) flew one.


The individual accounts of the aces’ careers have some amusing anecdotes; a group of five pilots escaped from a prison in Montenegro and fled back to Austrian lines by stealing the Prince of Montenegro’s limousine; two pilots managed to bomb a military review attended by the Tsar, and one officer-observer was credited with shooting down an enemy aircraft with his Mauser C96 personal sidearm (why wasn’t he using a Steyr, I wonder?)


Good enough if your interested in this sort of thing, although, like all Osprey books, a little pricey. ( )

While containing useful information about the Hapsburg air arm and its pilots, it's a bit off-putting how much of this booklet is devoted to providing a general survey of Vienna's war effort. It makes one appreciate that a new number in the series concentrating on Austrian Albatros aces is coming out; my initial impression is good. ( )